'Rage,' the latest game from id Software. - Page 2

Well, I got this for 100% virtual goods through Steam trading so I won't be out cash either way.  I still have high hopes though.  Just something about the videos I've watched that really appeals to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trevor 

Early word is that it's not very good. Definitely waiting on the reviews before making a purchase.

Depends. From what I've gathered so far people seem to be having problems with the combat on consoles. That's because id decided not to go with auto-aiming or a snap to target function the way console FPS games do. 

This is the most entertaining interview/article I can remember from any on-line video game publication.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6500/the_creative_intent_of_rage.php

The fact that the interviewee just blithely misses the entire sardonic subtext of the interviewers questions is side-splittingly funny.  Also: sounds like Rage is a piece of shit. 

      Quote:

Originally Posted by Overlord 

This is the most entertaining interview/article I can remember from any on-line video game publication.

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6500/the_creative_intent_of_rage.php

 

The fact that the interviewee just blithely misses the entire sardonic subtext of the interviewers questions is side-splittingly funny.  Also: sounds like Rage is a piece of shit. 

Hmm, if that interview is on the up and up then..just wow. Fucking wow. I can understand pointing out an issue like, "Wow your game looks like Borderlands and Fallout." But it really doesn't seem like there was much to the interview outside being a snide, snarky little cocksucker. "O rly lk @ me i iz clever..ten interwebz plz tnks!"

Online media and "journalism" where tact is a word for old people! What a douche.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGhost 

      Quote:

Hmm, if that interview is on the up and up then..just wow. Fucking wow. I can understand pointing out an issue like, "Wow your game looks like Borderlands and Fallout." But it really doesn't seem like there was much to the interview outside being a snide, snarky little cocksucker. "O rly lk @ me i iz clever..ten interwebz plz tnks!"

 

Online media and "journalism" where tact is a word for old people! What a douche.

But for sheer entertainment, it can't be beat!  So many on-line "journalists" like to pretend they're big straight-shooting badasses when all they really do is consume, digest, and regurgitate the same tired, stale industry talking points, this represents a nice change of pace.

I can't argue with that at all man, it's sad but true. It's nice when someone cuts through the bullshit and pushes a little when someone wants to give you the same tired shit you heard in the commercial, read in the ads, etc.

I'll maintain there's a polite way to have an engaging conversation without coming off to readers as a prick. I read the comments too and I'm not really sure what his whole, "This was after playing the game for four hours." thing had to do with acting like a tool box. Dick is a dick.

Pre-Loaded this on Steam. Started up fine, opening cinematic looks great. Complete and utter insanity once the actual game kicks in, textures aren't loading, audio bounces, crashes once I'm out of the Ark. My current system isn't anything great but it's over the recommended settings. Apparently a lot of people with AMD cards are having the same issues....at this point I don't really care if it's the game of the year. I want my money back. :P The downside of buying things digitally. You're stuck with a piece of shit. I'm sure it'll be patched soon enough and I'll change my tune but goddamn. Companies need to do more testing on PC games.

So I should buy the monacle then?  I assume you install it as a scope.

I have a serious rig and am having texture issues, but I haven't done a driver update in a bit so I'm not blaming the game yet.  Essentially the game looks like sex, but if I spin around real quick there's a half second before textures load.  It's pretty odd.

So far (probably not quite 90 minutes in) I hate the sound design.  I'm assuming if you're playing in stereo it's all good, but I usually game with 5.1 headphones.  Lots of issues where guys that are further away sound like their standing in my pocket.  This is extra freaky with that texture issue, where I spin around waiting to see if a guy is right there...but it's a wall.

I thought the first mission sounded intimidating (wipe out this whole village) but then I realized every mission is really that same thing.  "Hey, find out where Janus is."  Cool, so go up that hill and kill everything I see until I find Janus?  All right.  "Hey, go fix our radio tower."  Cool, so run up to the top of the tower killing everything I see until I find a switch?  Pretty standard so far and if I have any complaint at this point it's that it feels too much like Borderlands.  I know I'll enjoy it once I have more weapons to play with since I just got the combat shotgun and haven't bought the assault rifle yet, but I'm really looking forward to unique weapons.  Besides the Wingstick (which seems expensive to use with any regularity, and is so far significantly less effective than the many grenades I've found lying around) they really stick you with standard FPS weapons to start.

So the first reviews for the console version are out and they're in the 8.0 to 9.0 range. At this point it's a guarantee buy for me.

Video driver update solved everything for me, and damn this game looks good.  I also spent what little cash I had on the monacle and the assault rifle.  May as well gear up I guess.

So the sound design is my only real complaint so far.  Hoping for fun weapons and interesting mission design but I haven't gotten far enough in yet to complain about either of those.

You wouldn't happen to have an ATI card would you?

I swear, either Nvidia is actively sabotaging them or they actually want to keep playing second fiddle to them. Their driver team is a joke.

Besides the gunplay, it's a really boring game. Doesn't have a tenth of the depth of Borderlands.

Hey Alex! How's things?

Anyway, considering how tired and disappointed with the gunplay in modern FPS (Borderland among them) games I'm more than willing to give it a try.

To be fair, "Always have the last version of the drivers" kind of goes without saying in PC gaming.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stelios 

To be fair, "Always have the last version of the drivers" kind of goes without saying in PC gaming.

It does, but when a gigantic portion of your fan base (who cared enough to preorder your game) is having this issue and painstakingly documenting it along with potential fixes that they've tried and failed...well, you're going to insult people when that's your first response.

Me?  I knew it was likely my fault, that's why I withheld judgement.  But it wasn't long ago I couldn't get Portal 2 running and I was in that group of people who paid full price for a game they should have been able to run but couldn't.  It sucks.  It sucks even worse when you try all standard fixes, then search like a maniac for other potential fixes to try, then get told something like "Did you check your drivers?".

So I'll play some more tonight, and I'll enjoy it, but I absolutely feel sympathetic to the people with ATI cards who are having the substantial issues.  Hopefully a legit fix comes out sooner than later.

Oh, drivers.

I've got a ATI in my desktop and let me tell you, it's entirely fail. I hope the drivers clear this up, I downloaded the last set they said to and that actually made it worse. So, fingers crossed, that the one they're "working on" takes care of it.

I can get out of the Ark, I'm not having total crashes or anything but the textures don't load, the audio is looping weird random shit, there are all sorts of dead spots in the screen where there aren't any textures at all and it occasionally locks up for a few seconds when I turn. The weird thing is too that movement is completely fine, if I don't look with the mouse it runs fine, outside the missing texture, etc, but as soon as I look anywhere it's like, nope gonna lock up for a second then load these ugly textures.

When I play it in windowed mode and check my hardware it's not flat lining or running my video card really hard so I dunno. I'm a total PC retard so I've just been keeping track on the steam forum and trying all the fixes.

I hate you Nvidia guys. I wish you could see my epic sad face...

Had a few bits of weirdness before I updated my drivers (GTX 580, yayusss), but now all is fine. I had some horrid experiences with an ATI Rage Pro back in the Quake 2 days, and it was my last ATI card. Nvidia fo lyfe.

Man, I do not miss gaming on a PC.

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Originally Posted by ScottieFerguson 

Man, I do not miss gaming on a PC.

+a gajillion.

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Originally Posted by mongycore 

Lol, pc gaming isn't witchcraft. You aren't trying to massage your soundblaster card into working in dos, no need for any wrappers to smooth out graphic performance. If you don't feel like spending 600-4000 on a gaming rig no one is forcing you to - consoles work just as fine - no need to go all Derp on the boards. If you get a good set of hardware, even the generic gateway fx boxes from best buy, gaming has been pretty fucking idiot proof for the past 4-5 years; excluding ati's fucked up drivers for rage, Dirt 3 being forced into directx 9 mode, and Dead Island shipping the wrong build to steam. I buy a game on steam, I press the play button and it works, never a miscommunication - you can't explain that.
So Ghost guy, ATI's working Drivers for Rage are available now. Hope that smooths out your experience.

Do you know how fucking hard it is to get a few more chunks of that 640K memory by using tricks like "loadhigh" for mouse drivers or emm386.exe/qemm386?  And don't even get me started on matching IRQ channels.

*shudders*

Okay, the game picks up a LOT at Wellspring.  Lots more fun.  The races have actually been fun so far and I just finally armed my buggy.

I discounted the Wingstick too quickly.  Ungodly fun against bandits.  I thought I'd run out too quickly but now I have a recipe to make them and I discovered you can loot the ones that don't leave your enemies bodies so I don't lose them as quickly.

Also, Wellspring has my favorite easter egg in a while.  Once you meet Sheriff Black if you walk past his desk to where the cells are, on one of the storage shelves is Tuco's gold teeth inside the acrylic cube from Breaking Bad.  Much more satisfying than the Vault Tec bobblehead on his desk.

There are three types of races and they get old fast. Not too many upgrades to get either, just improved handling, boost, armor, and wheels.

Wingsticks are easily my favorite weapon in the game- they just really come in handy, especially when you get the Advanced versions that can take out multiple opponents with one throw. Sad part is that in the game you'll eventually get enough cash to buy whatever you need, you won't even need to make your own.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stelios 

Hey Alex! How's things?

 

Anyway, considering how tired and disappointed with the gunplay in modern FPS (Borderland among them) games I'm more than willing to give it a try.

Things are good! Glad to see that the gaming discussion is still going strong over here, even if it's crickets everywhere else.

I reviewed this over at Badass Digest for anyone who's interested- http://www.badassdigest.com/2011/10/04/video-game-review-rage-is-not-worth-raging-over

Hey, Fat Elvis and co. have been doing great things with the horror threads. Nice to see you around!

I couldn't cancel my Rage preorder fast enough. I'm actually kinda glad, what with Dark Souls, Forza, and Dead Rising 2.5 all clogging the pre-Skyrim game drain this fall.

Yeah, I'm just glad I got this out of the way early. I couldn't delete that game data off my hard drive fast enough. I've got Portal 2 dlc to play, damn it!

Also yes, Dark Souls is on the way. Absolutely can't wait for that one. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trevor 

Hey, Fat Elvis and co. have been doing great things with the horror threads. Nice to see you around!

 

I couldn't cancel my Rage preorder fast enough. I'm actually kinda glad, what with Dark Souls, Forza, and Dead Rising 2.5 all clogging the pre-Skyrim game drain this fall.

Don't forget Saints Row 3. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Riviello 

Yeah, I'm just glad I got this out of the way early. I couldn't delete that game data off my hard drive fast enough. I've got Portal 2 dlc to play, damn it!

 

Also yes, Dark Souls is on the way. Absolutely can't wait for that one. 

I'm not blown away by anything in Rage yet, but I've enjoyed everything I've done so far.  I do have complaints but I feel like they're all pretty minor.  I'll have to wait until I get home to see your thoughts on it as BAD is of course firewalled from most any workplace thanks to the name, but so far it's more fun than Bulletstorm and the like which were supposed to be fun.

Plus, I'm interested in multiplayer since multiplayer Borderlands on the PC was essentially the worst thing ever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Overlord 

Don't forget Saints Row 3. 

Comes out after Skyrim! I'll probably get 5 hours of sleep total in the back half of November.

Steam is a class act. They just sent me the confirmation Rage would be removed from my game library and my debit card would be reimbursed the $59.99, no service charge. Nothing. I'd heard they only give back steam credit but my customer service guy asked me which I wanted. I got the impression that if you talk to them like adults they're pretty easy going and understanding.

I'll pick this up when the price drops on PS3 or something, after the driver updates and shit that didn't do anything for me I'm done with id on PC.

EDIT: Great review Alex. I had read that the multiplayer was just races and sort of hoped that was bullshit. You'd think with an "open world" game they could have done some pretty fun capture the flag with hot spots that you could use your buggies/cars to get to. You know...actual use the gameplay they had built the game around? Oh well, I'll see for myself in a few months.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGhost 

Steam is a class act. They just sent me the confirmation Rage would be removed from my game library and my debit card would be reimbursed the $59.99, no service charge. Nothing. I'd heard they only give back steam credit but my customer service guy asked me which I wanted. I got the impression that if you talk to them like adults they're pretty easy going and understanding.

 

 

I got a full refund when they took back Portal 2.  Of course, that was after 10 messages back and forth over 2 weeks between me and them trying to fix the issue when I finally got fed up enough to ask for a refund.  I use Steam enough that a credit probably wouldn't have bothered me, but they gave me the choice and I took the refund as well.  Steam is good enough that it annoys me when games I'm interested in playing refuse to play ball, usually because they have hopes of starting their own similar service (hello, EA!).

I guess with the general foolishness going on surrounding the Rage release they didn't fight me at all. I sent a message asking for a refund, a screenshot of my PC specs and pretty much said my rig was over the recommended settings that were posted and it didn't work. The first message back was about the drivers. I followed up saying I had installed them and it was still running like dry shit and added another screenshot of the actual game problem. The follow up was if I wanted my refund to be debit or credit in my steam wallet. It was all pretty robotic from their end but the guy was polite. I got the impression they have pre-made forms to fill like, "Insure that your _________ drivers are up to date. (insert link)" But anyway, no muss, no fuss. Pretty happy about it. I made it clear that I understood it wasn't their fault and they just provide a service, a service I'm glad to have available.

I'm actually enjoying Rage a lot. The setting is fun and the graphics are great (360). Yeah it's nothing genre defining but the game is fun to me and I'm enjoying the weapons offered in the game along with the different ammo types (shotgun missile shell where have you been all my life) and this is a nice holdover until Batman: AC comes out in a few weeks. Now people bring up Dark Souls but that will be a very time consuming game but I don't want to get that since Skyrim comes out soon enough and that will be my major time sink. The sound in the game is great too, the guns sound like real guns to me unlike a few other games where they just don't sound/feel like guns to me.

Those shotgun/grenade launcher shells are so fun.  I wouldn't have survived Mutant TV without them, but for some reason I keep forgetting to use turrets even though I keep making them.

I just barely got the crossbow, but only have the steel bolts so it's still not that fun to use (really only helpful before a group knows you're there and regardless of how stealthy you try to be they figure out you're there pretty quickly).

I find 90% of the time I use the pistols with the Fat Boy bullets (that and the scope is pretty deadly, I haven't tried the bullet upgrade from there because I kill just about everything in 1 shot now) and Wingsticks.

I've gold medalled all of the races in Wellspring, maxed out my buggies and nearly maxed out the Cuptino as well.  I just got the mission to go to the next town from Wellspring but I have a few missions that I haven't completed in the area yet so I'll knock those out before I move on.  I'm having fun as well though, it's a good shooter.  It's surprised me a few times (Mutant TV seems markedly harder than anything else I'd done in the game) but the shooter sections are just really well done.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun gave it the thumbs up. So that seals it. As soon as the ridiculous retailers over here bother to get it, I'm buying. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by mongycore 


I loaded up on fatboys and have been using them almost exclusively. Great for headshotting dudes who peek out of cover. Wingsticks decapitate those raging melee guys a little too easily. I've ocd'd all the available races and delivery runs that are too easy to win. So all my cars are maxed out with upgrades. Just cleared out the bunker and don't exactly have an approach to the Juggernaut enemies that made an appearance there, I head shotted them 4-5 times with the sniper, but ended up having to spam them with grenades as they closed the distance on me. Game has picked up nicely from the pedestrian opening bits (but I miss the John Goodman npc guy).

Just did the bunker last night.  I went with standard assault rifle on the juggernaut guys.  I figured all of the machine gun ammo in the bunker was a hint.  It turns out if you just unload on them from pretty close they actually can't bring their arm up to shoot quickly.  You wait until their arm is almost up, duck behind something, they lower their arm and you jump out and repeat.

I liked both the job board sniper missions quite a bit.  I'm still not quite maxed out on my big car, but close.  I did the difficult mail mission (and it was difficult) but haven't yet done the easier ones.  Currently all I have is one open mission from the Mayor of Wellspring as well as the always open mission from the lady at the bar.

About the Gamasutra interview... let's take the Alien 3 teaser for a comparison. Imagine back then, a reporter saw the first official teaser trailer which states "In 1992, on Earth, everyone will hear you scream", implying that Xenomorphs will finally be seen on Earth. Or that at least something, anything will have to do with Earth. Then said reporter watches a full hour of the movie and gets the impression that.. well, it doesn't seem to feature Earth at all. The reporter then directly asks about the Earth thing and a Fox speaker begins to emphasize that in fact, the doctor's dialoge with earth bound Weyland-Yutani is extremely important to the story, and that it was always meant to be that.

I think the truth is that on Doom 3, id spent houndreds of hours on doing all those computer interfaces with emails and blogs and private messages of the people of the Mars station and no one gave a fuck. So they said fuck that and made another linear game that is just "go from A to B and kill everyone inbetween".

It's just wrong trying to make this Gamasutra reporter believe that there actually is depth in Rage when it's highly doubtful (and now: proven) that there simply is not. Hollenshead should have said well there is no depth, but the game has other strengths beyond having the technically best engine around. John Carmack has done an outstanding, stellar job with that, as always, but every other department hasn't. They didn't screw it up, it's not a Duke Nukem Forever, but story, gameplay and interactions is closer to DNF than to a Fallout New Vegas. And they can't expect a gaming reporter not to notice that, and it doesn't matter if he's Jeff Gerstman or a no name blogger who just plays the ten biggest AAA titles of the year. Even he will notice.

After an hour and half of this, I have to call bullshit one these extremely negative reactions. I have to go now so I won't be able to go any further but I'll give a deeper evaluation of this tomorrow.

I like it and it actually seems to get better with every passing hour, but as of now, three hours in, I gotta admit that I might get difficulties ranking this above... Bulletstorm. This has great racing and the best graphics all around, but Bulletstorm seemed more diverse, more fun, faster, more spectacular, without having less of story or atmosphere. Still worth buying it, not saying that, but it. could. have. been. so much better.

So much fun when you get the new crossbow bolts.  I want more mind control bolts please.  Like a 5 year old kid with his new toy I went through those shits the first mission after they gave them to me.  Those and dynamite bolts are just ridiculously fun.  I'm still waiting to get fabulously rich because I go through the armor piercing ammo something fierce.

Also, I finally bought the recipe to take my Fat Boy bullets to Big Mama bullets.  I read they were twice as powerful so figured I'd try them.  The very first firefight with them totally on accident I headshot a guy and the bullet kept traveling to headshot the guy behind him too.  So now I spend way too much money crafting those things too.

Also, use the spider sentry things.  I only dropped one just to see what it could do and it absolutely tore up about a dozen guys without me even helping.

So much fun.  12 hours in and I've barely joined the Resistance.

Monster Mash is a great way to earn money, especially if you hit the three lights in the ship cove area of the minigame.